I didn't like IV much, at least in comparison to III. The fourth game sort of felt like it was short on content, other than the standard modes. For example, the tutorial was excellent in the third, but utter rubbish in four (text boxes, wat...)!

"Ask stupid questions. Growth is fuelled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer,not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant."

V plays VERY differently than IV. I'd go so far as to say it's a bit of a departure from the rest of the series. The movement is more like other fighting games now, kinda quick and jerky from move to move instead of one big flowing form. It's not really better or worse, just a preference in style. Personally, the flowy movement is one of the reasons I always liked this series more than Tekken or SF, but whatev.

A lot of the moves have been moved around, too. I'm working on breaking four years of motor memory; many of what used to be attack moves are now defensive guard impact moves. And guard impact is no longer back G/forward G; both of those commands do nothing.

The single player is an even bigger letdown than it was in SCIV, which I didn't think was possible. I'm not that bothered since the reason I play this is the multiplayer, but after seeing, say, Tekken's single player? Pretty disappointing.

Aside from all that, I'm definitely liking it so far! Sab, I'm ready to XX_THROWDOWN_XX whenever, you should still be on my friends list. Been playing on Live in the unranked North America lounges a lot; going back and forth between that, story, and practice/arcade mode to get a proper feel for the game.

Also, the box for the Collector's edition is just about the coolest fucking thing ever. That alone is worth the extra money, and between that and the hardcover art book, I have to wonder if they're actually making any additional money on the CE.

Last edited by Invisusira on Thu Feb 02, 2012 12:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I actually really liked the story mode if only for the fact that it got a LOT more story text inside the game for the first time since Soul Edge. It was too short and didn't cover everything that happened (based on reading the character backgrounds in the art book). But it did get one whole storyline (Patroklos/Pyrrha/Soul Edge/Soul Calibur) told, and that's a big win over "here's a character ending, try and reverse engineer everything else from it". SC4 definitely was better in terms of in-game story presentation than 1, 2, or 3, but nothing holds a candle to the original Soul Edge. I miss that game :(

What I'd LOVE to see and what will never ever happen would be like, 2 or 3 more story modes, for the Z.W.E.I/Viola/Siegfried/Schwarzwind storyline and the Asian folks (Leixia/Xiba/Natsu/Maxi) storyline at least, and possibly other bits and pieces to show what folks like Mitsurugi were up to.

psh IV was waayyyy better than III. (I'm talking about the game, not the guest characters or the single player, which have little impact on the actual game.) II was the worst iirc. I'm pretty sure I liked SCI better than SC III as well.

Skye1013 wrote:I loved the conquest mode that SC2 had in arcades. Wish that had made it to consoles (it wasn't on GCN or PS2 versions, at least.)

Conquest mode was tons of fun when you had an active arcade scene to play it with. We had an SC2 machine in the university center when I went to college and that was fun as hell.

I think gameplaywise SC2 was the one the community most loved. I have heard a lot of crying about how SC3 slowed it down and had game-breaking custom characters and all that. Personally I just loved SC3 because Siegfried had broken free of the Soul Edge's influence and was no longer Nightmare. Also he was played by Crispin Freeman in the english dub and Crispin Freeman is The Best Voice Actor.

SC4 definitely had more meat story-wise in the arcade mode, but the online play really turned me off with the legions of Vader/Yoda/Apprentice/Algol nonsense. Seriously fuck that shit. I'm not sure what I could say about gameplay of SC3 vs SC4, all I know is I'm still sick of how they fragmented Siegfried's movelist between him and Nightmare. All of the incarnations past SC1 have yet to satisfy me in that regard.

They've taken away a good number of my moves, too. For the most part, it seems more... streamlined? Some of the more technical, complex moves have been simplified into Critical Edge attacks, and many of the cheaper, spammy moves have been de-cheapened or removed outright. I don't necessarily mind it, but I also don't really think it was needed. I liked knowing how to do some of the trickier stuff that's now just a simple slide input, and messing with people by using Cervantes' teleports defensively instead of offensively was one of my favorite things to do, particularly against other teleporty characters like Yoshi.

To be fair, while I don't know HOW to do a lot of Siegfried's moves? I'm quite familiar with the moveset in general and how to counter most of his combos. So timing the teleport-back-and-knock-you-up-in-the-air-as-you-try-to-attack move has become a good way to dispatch aggressive opponents since they've taken away some of my other quick-movement options.

also quit putting your face in front of my bullets when you stand up yo

But yeah, Mitsurugi and Natsu both feel a bit too much on the easy to play and do ridiculous damage/easy to play and moves fucking fast as shit sides, respectively. And Nightmare, while not as easy to play, feels damn fast, too.

Also, Nika was like "what do you MEAN he doesn't like custom characters??"

Last edited by Invisusira on Tue Feb 07, 2012 11:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

But seriously the things I was having the most trouble adapting to was: 1. convincing myself that I couldn't catch the teleport back -> dash forward with either my running B, B or rising A, A and 2. reacting in time to that unblockable bullet nonsense. I'm gonna get it though, you just watch! all of my adaptability has rusted away from years of disuse (and spamming the same moves over and over because seriously people online fall for that shit all the damn time) BUT I WILL GET BACK IN THE GROOVE

Invisusira wrote:Also, Nika was like "what do you MEAN he doesn't like custom characters??"

ok seriously I fought a guy in ranked who was playing a custom with a giant phallus attached to his crotch. Shit is not kosher.

I remember this guy that Invis kept running into in SCIV about a year or so ago that was just super creepy. Every custom character he had (we're talking 7+) had some perverse name and it was always a man in a black leather chaps (full on butt exposure) that just screamed nastiness. Every single character this guy had was just disgusting. Bleugh.

Finally cracked this open last night. I definitely will have to relearn all the button combinations, since I haven't really played since SC3 first came out.

That being said... I absolutely hate fighting AI Nightmare in arcade mode. Going from full health to 0 in a matter of 2 combos sucks. I suppose once I get better at Guard Impacts and dodging the right direction, it won't be nearly as painful, but until then...

Characters I've played with so far:Ivy (took like 20 tries to beat Nightmare)Voldo (took 1-2 tries on Nightmare)Xiba (took 10-15 tries on Nightmare)

I don't know if that means I'm more of a natural with Voldo, or Voldo is just extremely cheap, but either way, he's the only one that didn't make me feel like I wanted to throw my controller across the room. He's also currently holding my "record time" of somewhere between 7-8 minutes.